Today on Facebook someone posted something about how 9-year-old kids now have all these expensive, complicated ipads, iphones, laptops and whatever, and when that they were 9, they felt cool just having a new set of markers! I replied that when I was 9 it was cool having an Atari 2600, which my brother and I one year got for Easter along with the usual chocolate and stuff. But it was when we got the NES when we were teens where I really have fond memories. Super Mario Bros. 2 is the first game I remember beating on my own (back then I had no clue about the Doki-doki Panic game or that The Japanese version of SMB2 wasn't released because supposedly it was too hard for "wimpy Americans" or whatever, I just thought it looked too much like SMB1). And then we got Super Mario 3, which took FOREVER to be released but was totally worth it. And then there was the not so happy memory of seeing my brother or my cousins play Bionic Commando and seeing Hitlers head explode in a bloody mess. (This was okay, especially for Nintendo, but the Nazi propaganda from the Japanese version wasn't??), and being afraid to sleep that night. Even before there was even an NES I was amazed by the arcade versions of Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. And Pac-Man. When I owned the PS1 I played Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, the first HM game I'd ever played, and I was hopelessly obsessed. I still watch a lot of videos of old games on YT, including a lot I've seen or heard of before, it's just so awesome.